County approves budget with 3 percent increase

A public comment portion of Tuesday’s budget session ended without a word, and Meilke drifted through the budget line-by-line without stopping for many questions from supervisors before the budget was approved by a margin of 30 to 3. Supervisors Dean Fuller, Paul Marose and Eugene Wurtz voted against adopting the budget.

The $100.2 million budget adopted Tuesday came in with approximately $1.4 million less in operating costs compared to the 2009 budget. Despite the lower operating cost, the $31.9 million tax levy is 3 percent higher than the previous years, forcing the mill rate to increase 13 cents to $5.21. For a $154,000 home, the average value in Dodge County, the homeowner would see a $20 total increase.

Meilke said one of the reasons for the increased mill rate is that the county’s equalized valuation growth has slowed.

"With that it’s difficult to maintain the prior trend," he told supervisors.

However, the good news for Dodge County is that while many surrounding counties saw a net loss in equalized valuation, Dodge County’s actually grew .44 percent.

Much of 1.4-percent budget decrease came from not funding vacant, full-time county positions, and department heads maintaining their 2010 budgets at 2009 levels. The number of full-time county employees was decreased from 763 to 749.

Both Clearview and human services have maintained their 2010 levies at the 2009 level. Mielke went on to state that human services has committed to ending the current fiscal year with a $200,000 balance, which will offset decreased revenues in 2010.

The sheriff’s department, on the other hand, will see a budget increase of $463,692. Much of that is due to previously negotiated wage/benefit adjustments for 2010.

The budget includes a previously negotiated union wage increase of 2.5 percent Jan. 1, followed by a .5-percent increase July 1. Non-union employees will see a wage increase of 1.5 percent on Jan. 1 and July 1.

The budget proposal would also tap nearly $1.3 million in undesignated general funds. Supervisors in August approved allocating not more than $1.5 million from the county’s undesignated general fund to balance the 2010 budget.